Gustav Klimt - Baby (Wiege) 1917/18

A baby nestles in a mass of frilly white fabric atop a colorful patchwork, perhaps a pile of quilts, against a sage and spring-

green background in this square painting. The baby’s face and right hand peeks out from the mountain of fabric at the

top center of the composition. The infant has ash-white skin with pink cheeks and lips, and looks down toward us with

large dark eyes. The pile of fabric creates a mosaic-like mix of pattern and color with vibrant royal and baby blue, sage

green, turquoise, butter yellow, and shell and salmon pink. Some patterns are outlined in black while brushstrokes swirl

together in other areas. The background is mottled with cool mint and asparagus-green strokes against pale beige.

Vergrösserung

https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.56662.html

Provenance

(Galerie Nebehay, Vienna); sold 1919 to Otto [d. 1926] and Eugenia Primavesi, Vienna;[1] acquired 1928 with other

paintings from Eugenia Primavesi by Hugo or Otto Bernatzig (or Bernatzik), Vienna. Brought to the United States by Josef

Urban [1872-1933], New York.[2] (Galérie St. Etienne, New York), possibly by 1959;[3] Otto [1894-1978] and Franziska

[1899-1992] Kallir, New York; acquired 1978 through gift and purchase by NGA.

[1] According to Tobias G. Natter, cited in Klimt, Schiele, Moser, Kokoschka. Vienne 1900, Exh. cat., Galeries nationales du

Grand Palais, Paris, 2005-2006: unnumbered catalogue. The name Sigmund Primavesi that is listed in the painting's

provenance in the 1965 Guggenheim exhibition catalogue is probably an error.

[2] According to Jane Kallir, Saved from Europe: Otto Kallir and the History of the Galerie St. Etienne, Exh. cat., Galerie St.

Etienne, New York, 1999: pl. 16.

[3] The Galerie St. Etienne, whose owners were Otto and Franziska Kallir, included the painting in its 1959 Klimt

exhibition. Mrs. Josef Urban was listed in the catalogue as a lender, but which painting(s) she lent is not specified, so it is

possible she had inherited the painting from her husband and still owned it in 1959.